A combination ink and media consumable cartridge, in the context of inkjet printers, would contain both an ink cartridge (also referred to as an “inkjet pen”) and a media cartridge. In most printers the media cartridge and the inkjet pen are oriented such that the inkjet pen is either on top of, or in front of, the media cartridge. As the combination cartridge is integrally inserted into a print device (e.g., printer, photocopier, etc.), the overall size of the combination cartridge is dependent not only on the size of the inkjet pen and the media cartridge but is also dependent on the orientation of the inkjet pen with respect to the media cartridge.
As a result of the foregoing structural issues, the size of the combination cartridge has been, in large part, determined by the inkjet pen being positioned on top of, or in front of, the media cartridge. As a result, the shape of such a combination cartridge is irregular, thereby yielding high manufacturing costs. In addition, the package in which the irregularly shaped combination cartridge is shipped must be either correspondingly irregularly shaped (thereby avoiding empty space in the package) or be regularly shaped (thereby creating undesirable empty space in the package). However, if an irregularly shaped package is chosen, the packages can not be bundled on a shipping pallet without creating a similar amount of undesirable empty space between the packages. A direct result of the empty space (either in a regularly shaped package or between irregularly shaped packages) is higher shipping costs.
Accordingly, what is needed is a combination cartridge which addresses one or more of the aforementioned deficiencies in the prior art.